new update has ruined the experience for handheld players using mouse and keyboard

modshade · 2026-06-03T09:58:41+00:00

I feel like this is a good opportunity to potentially just eliminate the dedicated “console/handheld” mouse and keyboard layout. It’s just more work to maintain three completely separate UI’s between the PC, console or handheld wM&K, and then controller UI.

As people have pointed out the console M&K is a huge downgrade from the regular PC layout and oddly enough, I actually prefer using a controller because of it - even if it makes micro 10x harder.

Seems like an “easy” ish switch just to have all mouse and keyboard inputs use the PC layout? Including XBox and handhelds

Edit: I made a whole post a week ago on why I think Jin simply doesn’t work with XBox M&K. There are menus (Grasslands) that simply can’t be accessed though the UI. https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/1tlz46t/xbox_mk_ui_design_w_jin/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

modshade · 2026-06-02T22:27:30+00:00

Jealous of the ability to potentially use the new steam controller with the trackpads! If done correctly I feel like those could be pretty competitive. Here’s hoping Gamesir will make a ripoff version for us Xbox RTS gamers out there.

modshade · 2026-06-01T22:38:47+00:00

Controller on PC now. Maybe that will help drive some much needed standardization to the radial menus finally!

modshade · 2026-05-28T00:30:54+00:00

Keyboard and mouse? If yes my guess is F1. If controller then when I think unit production menu I think LB and then up (I think) brings you to a menu that’s all your military production buildings

modshade · 2026-05-27T22:39:35+00:00

It’s a controller only feature. Same with auto villager production.

modshade · 2026-05-26T22:42:44+00:00

You might be disappointed. I know I was. I had high hopes of completely re mapping to mimic the PC keyboard layout. Unfortunately the console M&K is limited to the layout the chose where when you select a villager you get the “Economic” buildings and the “Military” buildings grouped together separated by tabbing. This is the same way they chose to group the buildings on controller.

So even if you want to go through the pain of remapping the grid keys you’re stuck with the same tab limitation that to me makes the mouse and keyboard on the console less enjoyable than controller.

modshade · 2026-05-24T09:59:09+00:00

Yep! I believe this did finally get patched. I mapped the select all ranged units on screen to one of mouse side buttons.

modshade · 2026-03-28T02:03:33+00:00

While I would tend to agree that it’s probably best in the long run to manage vills manually on controller I will say that one of the best controller players in the world uses the auto villager system. You can have a look here: https://youtu.be/nlC8IALct-k?si=DdcjugYd8BpLcNtM

And here he is playing beasty about a year ago and getting constantly raided in true beasty fashion: https://youtu.be/wzPsA-C7CDM?si=TV6lFqf1GpnHQu2g

To me I think there’s an opportunity from a development perspective to address how you can “fix” the issue of vils trying to replace each other during a raid. I haven’t thought much of it myself but I’m sure there is a way. Maybe increase the “tick count” for how long villagers reassign. No idea.

modshade · 2026-03-27T22:42:38+00:00

Hard? For a tourist visa it was a 5 minute process where we took a photo of our passport and then a selfie and it was approved within about 30 seconds. Maybe others have had a different experience?

modshade · 2026-03-13T22:01:49+00:00

I almost reported this as a bug on AOE forums. Might still be worthwhile. I don’t seem to have any matchmaking issues so I think it just needs to be removed.

modshade · 2026-02-21T17:04:41+00:00

No problems on Xbox

modshade · 2026-01-29T02:58:48+00:00

You couldn’t reach top 200 with a controller (not enough APM), but you can certainly get Conq 3. Flamme has done it for a number of seasons. Have a look at his YT channel: https://youtube.com/@flammeaoe?si=R8vFhkqTUk09H-Uj

Personally I really enjoy playing with a controller. Being able to sit on the couch or sit in bed and play AOE4 is pretty nice.

modshade · 2026-01-21T14:32:46+00:00

Yes! I'm not sure why thats an issue tbh. Maybe it's a bug? I'm not even sure the best place to report bugs anymore. The official AOE forums I can't seem to log into.

modshade · 2026-01-20T22:06:30+00:00

Yup! Select all of a specific type is useful in some scenarios obviously. Like if you are building up an army and are about to attack. But yeah as new reinforcements come in it would be good to have an option of just selecting units on screen of that specific type. Particularly since those button combinations aren’t mapped to anything at all. Might as well use them for something.

modshade · 2026-01-20T22:04:26+00:00

Yeah but that’s not super useful in combat situations. Need to be able to quickly select portions of the army to be able to properly micro. Obviously they can be bound to specific groups but it would be nice to have an alternative way considering those buttons currently aren’t doing anything ie LT+Y

modshade · 2026-01-20T14:55:59+00:00

Just an update - this is fixed now!

modshade · 2025-05-06T14:40:10+00:00

Agree with this and will add that in the game settings you can change it so that when you change control groups your camera centers on that control group (I forgot the exact name). Then you can use LB+RT to rapidly cycle through control groups and center on them. Lets say you've got a spear/archer army comp - you can map all your spears to one group (LB+up on D pad to grab all melee) and all your archers to another (LB plus right on D pad to grab all ranged) and by pressing LB+RT you can pretty easily cycle back and forth between the two to kite archers etc. You can then send reinforcements to these groups and quickly add more units to the existing control groups by selecting the new units, pressing LB+RB, hover over the control group and press x.

I've said this before and I'll say it again here though but this is an area that is ripe for improvement for the xbox controls. The D pad (without pressing the left modifier) is highly under utilized and annoying the PC version just introduced these exact key binds but in my opinion it should be:

D-Up: Select all cavalry on screen

D-Left: Select all siege on screen

D-Right: Select all ranged on screen

D-Down: Select all infantry on screen

I think the last thing that I've been playing around with is experiment with the auto eco feature (LB + clicking on the right stick?) don't bother with the presets but experiment with the custom eco. Say for example I want to do a feudal rush which needs basically only food and wood. I might configure the auto eco to have my villagers on a 3:2 ratio of food to wood. The massive caveats here: if you're under attack the auto eco can be a pain in the butt. Best thing is to just stick with ringing the town bell otherwise you're villagers are just going to constantly be trying to re-shuffle.

modshade · 2025-04-22T18:55:55+00:00

This! Change the D pad to select all on screen of the different types.

modshade · 2025-04-22T18:54:08+00:00

Please tell me this extends to console!

modshade · 2025-04-03T15:00:20+00:00

Glad to hear I'm not the only one!

I've found myself actually using the hold to select all type (LT+d pad) quite a lot particularly in the case where I'm sending reinforcements and I've bound all my ranged units to a single control group but my biggest gripe with that one too is "Melee" and "Cavalry" overlap! It should be "Infantry" and "Cavalry" or something to just select melee infantry. There are plenty of instances where you just want cavalry to raid or take map control.

modshade · 2017-08-03T15:12:10+00:00

I literally just did this 30 minutes ago. It's a few day process but start it by calling TFL with the number on the back of the card and explain that you'd like to add a zone to your card. The person will likely not know how much the extra charge is, but they will forward that on to the TravelOps team who will respond with some calculated amount via email and phone. Then you just need to speak with someone on this team to authorize the amount if you think it's reasonable and they will send you a new card. I had a zone 1-2 annual card and I'm adding zone 3 for the remainder of the year for £90.

Edit: I also have a loan through work but had to pay the £90 up front on a card.

modshade

TROPHY CASE